The federal Defence of Marriage Act, or DOMA, defining marriage as between one man and one woman is unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause, the US Supreme Court has ruled, with a vote of 5-4.

In a separate case, the court sent back to lower courts a challenge to California’s Proposition 8, the voter-approved initiative barring same-sex marriage. In this second 5-4 ruling, with a different lineup of justices, the court remanded the case back to the lower federal courts, saying the individuals who defended the law in court lacked legal standing to do so.

Neither decision will have the effect of requiring states to honor same-sex marriages from other jurisdictions, but the DOMA case likely will affect how the federal government must treat same-sex marriages for purposes ranging from Social Security benefits to taxation.

The opinion by Justice Anthony Kennedy criticised the law for having “the avowed purpose and practical effect … to impose a disadvantage, a separate status, and so a stigma upon all who enter into same-sex marriages made lawful by the unquestioned authority of the states.

“The act’s demonstrated purpose is to ensure that if any state decides to recognise same-sex marriages, those unions will be treated as second-class marriages for purposes of federal law,” Kennedy wrote. “This raises a most serious question under the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment.”

The California case was brought by two couples who were denied marriage licenses after the state’s voters in 2008 approved a constitutional amendment limiting marriage to heterosexual couples. The law was passed after the state Supreme Court ruled earlier that year that statutes banning same-sex marriage were unconstitutional.

After a federal District Court found that Prop 8 served no legitimate purpose and violates due process and the equal protection rights of same-sex couples to marry, the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals in a 2-1 ruling upheld that conclusion, although on a narrower legal finding. While litigation proceeded however, Prop 8’s ban on same-sex marriages was allowed to stand.

The state of California declined to defend Prop 8 when two couples sued to block it, so individuals who supported the law took up its defense.

In an opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts, the Supreme Court ruled that those individuals lacked the legal standing to defend the law in federal court. The effect of the decision appears to be that the California trial court’s ruling that Prop 8 is unconstitutional will stand, at least initially. That would allow same-sex marriages to resume in California.

“It is not enough that the party invoking the power of the court have a keen interest in the issue,” Roberts wrote. “That party must also have ‘standing,’ which requires, among other things, that it have suffered a concrete and particularized injury. Because we find that petitioners do not have standing, we have no authority to decide this case on the merits, and neither did the 9th Circuit.”

The New York case over DOMA arose when Edith Windsor inherited the estate of Thea Spyer, her partner of more than 40 years. The two had married in Canada in 2007. Windsor was held liable for $363,000 in federal estate and income taxes, which would not have applied to her had her spouse been a man.

Under the 1996 DOMA, marriage is defined as between one man and one woman for federal government purposes such as Social Security benefits, federal programs, immigration and federal estate and income taxes. It also said no political jurisdiction is required to recognize a same-sex marriage from another jurisdiction.

Lower courts had upheld Windsor’s argument that the law is unconstitutional. DOMA had the support of the administrations of Presidents Bill Clinton and George W Bush and at first of President Barack Obama. But in 2011, the Justice Department announced that the attorney general had determined that Section 3 is unconstitutional as applied to legally married same-sex spouses. The administration said federal agencies should continue to enforce the law, but that the government would no longer defend it in court.

The case to uphold DOMA was taken up by a group of members of Congress, known as the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group of the US House of Representatives.

The US Conference of Catholic Bishops and a number of organizations opposed to same-sex marriage had urged the court to issue rulings that upheld the traditional definition of marriage.

In 32 states, constitutional amendments ban same-sex marriage, while 12 states and the District of Columbia recognize such marriages. Another eight states recognize civil unions or domestic partnerships, with some having overlapping bans on same-sex marriage.

The authority of the “highest Courts of many nations” is as nothing against the authority of the Most High God and His teachings.

http://jabbapapa.wordpress.com/ Julian Lord

YOU have decided to come in here and express your hatred and
loathing of Catholics and of the teachings of the Catholic Church.

You
would be unable to discover the expressions of “hatred” of homosexuals
that you allege, unless you decided to search these forums very
minutely, and discovered oppositely extremist views on the topic than
your own extremism.

Whereas your hatred of Catholics and of Catholicism spews out of virtually every post that you have made in here.

I
honestly condemn homosexualism
(which is the political creed tending towards the destruction of
heterosexuality as the basis of society, and its replacement with the
creeds of militant gay activism), but this is not motivated by any form
of “hatred” whatsoever of homosexuals, but it is motivated by a desire
to see the foundations of Western civilisation preserved rather than
destroyed.

And honestly — if you seriously believe that laws
such as these will magically vanish away anti-homosexual hatred and
violence and discrimination, then you are seriously deluded… they will
only achieve further radicalisation of these evils by those who engage
in them, whilst simultaneously achieving the exact fracturing of our
society as is being evidenced and illustrated in this very thread.

Churchversus State is a recipe for social turmoil and
civil disorder. This is the likely societal outcome of these idiotic
laws, as well as an increase of attacks by extremists against
homosexuals, and attacks by other extremists against Catholics.

All
this to achieve something that you already had in the first place, and
to shovel some money that was allocated to families bringing up children
into the laps of homosexuals.

http://jabbapapa.wordpress.com/ Julian Lord

Perhaps a couple of neurons might spark inside your brain to alert you to the fact that YOU were the one basing an argument on outdated Levitical Laws, and nobody else.

http://jabbapapa.wordpress.com/ Julian Lord

friends here in the U.S. who agree with me and who disagree with the
teachings of the hierarchy on this issue, as the majority of American
Catholics do

Such is the parlous state of Catechism under the “supervision” of the USCCB …

the perceived sins

Sin exists objectively, not subjectively. But then, you’ve clearly demonstrated that not only do you have NO understanding of the Catholic doctrines of sin, but that you also have a willful desire to cling to your clichéd and protestantised fire-and-brimstone false “understanding” of its nature…

and see the true way of the Lord

The Truth of the Lord does not include direct contradiction of His teachings.

http://jabbapapa.wordpress.com/ Julian Lord

Perhaps you confuse my active disapproval of your aggressive anti-Catholic presentations and of your trolling with some fictional “homophobia” provided by your own imagination ?

http://aaglaas.blogspot.com/ aaglaas

Fascinating..

http://aaglaas.blogspot.com/ aaglaas

I know it went over your head again Jabba, but it was an example of ‘Gods’ Law’ that we now know to be very wrong, brutal, and do not follow any longer, to someone who said ‘God’s Law’ never changes and must always be followed.

http://aaglaas.blogspot.com/ aaglaas

Nope, once again you’re making stuff up Jabba… I’ve pointed out many times I have many Catholic friends, and also pointed out that the majority of Catholics agree with what I’ve stated regarding homosexuality and marriage. You are part of a dwindling few holding onto hateful teachings regarding this issue.

http://aaglaas.blogspot.com/ aaglaas

Didn’t they say such things as an excuse for the murders and torture committed using Christ’s name during the Inquisition as well, Jabba? It’s unsurprising that’s your similar answer.

http://aaglaas.blogspot.com/ aaglaas

You truly are amusing

http://aaglaas.blogspot.com/ aaglaas

Hmmm… guess we’ll have to disagree.

http://aaglaas.blogspot.com/ aaglaas

No.. not at all…. your choice of words such as ‘vomitous’ and such are quite memorable..

http://aaglaas.blogspot.com/ aaglaas

Your negativity and irrationality is simply astounding.. well, not really, given how much you’re indoctrinated, but still.

http://aaglaas.blogspot.com/ aaglaas

Those are her own words.. not her parents.

http://jabbapapa.wordpress.com/ Julian Lord

I do not cleave to the literalist interpretations that underly this commentary of yours, nor does the Catholic Church.

This is just another idiotic strawman argument.

http://jabbapapa.wordpress.com/ Julian Lord

I’ve never stated my spiritual beliefs

This does not alter the fact that you are, in fact, a Protestant.

I am BTW uninterested in your ad hominem false logic (not that I expect you to know the difference between personal criticism and an ad hominem).

http://aaglaas.blogspot.com/ aaglaas

Have you become a swami fortune teller now? Sorry, but your oracular abilities have fallen short this time..

Nice re-edit… that said, as to ad hominem.. that is almost all ‘you’ do, Jabba, because you never address the substance of the argument, you attack the authority. I really think you should listen to your own Pope’s teachings, you seem to be gravely in error all the time now:

Barging in again and, not for the first time, completely wrong. There is nothing self-contradictory about the concept that our democracy does not make important law via plebiscite. For that is the issue, and not “the principles of democracy”. We enjoy representative democracies, which serve us very well, and the Supreme Court decision simply reflected the reality of this.

Describing “liberalism” as totalitarian is as self-contradictory as I can imagine any statement to be!

http://jabbapapa.wordpress.com/ Julian Lord

Your negativity

Far as I can tell, YOU are the one who has come in here to start preaching at Catholics, calling us “bigoted”, “homophobic”, and “hateful”.

http://jabbapapa.wordpress.com/ Julian Lord

What, the knowledge that some people act upon their impulsive desires to engage in sexual intercourse with those of their own sex ?

It’s not exactly a recent scientific discovery, is it …

Meanwhile, you continue NOT to have addressed a single one of Solent’s points.

http://jabbapapa.wordpress.com/ Julian Lord

Referring to your troll-like behaviour …

http://jabbapapa.wordpress.com/ Julian Lord

Then every single referendum concerning this “gay marriage” is illegal then ?

Or is it just the ones that are opposed to it that will be overturned ?

(and never mind the fact that these Justices have likely caused permanent damage to the very nature of the referendum as a means of direct consultation in the US)

http://jabbapapa.wordpress.com/ Julian Lord

Didn’t they say such things as an excuse for the murders and torture committed using Christ’s name during the Inquisition as well, Jabba?

The torture was utterly reprehensible, but generally speaking there were no “murders” — anyone condemned to death after Trial by an Inquisition was so condemned by the secular authorities for crimes committed against the secular laws.

And to answer your question — Nope, and I am not surprised that you believe these ignorant clichés.

http://jabbapapa.wordpress.com/ Julian Lord

Where is this “hatred” ???

You’ve just decided that nobody can be opposed to “gay marriage” unless they are motivated by hate.

This is most likely because you have swallowed some anti-Catholic propaganda hook, line, and sinker…

What nonsense! In the UK we have not had, nor will we have, a referendum on this issue or any other which does not materially affect our constitutional position. I personally don’t approve of ANY referendums, whatever the issue, believing everything has to be determined by our elected representatives. That some other countries use referendums much more than us is a matter for them, but it is something I believe to be extremely unwise. It depends so much on how the questions are framed and gives too many opportunities to interest groups to pander to prejudices. Imagine if we had a referendum on the re-introduction of the death penalty, the undesirability of which is something I think we both agree upon.

The Justices have actually done a great service to the cause of representative democracy in the US and dealt a blow to the idea that interests groups can hold power. Now for the NRA!

http://aaglaas.blogspot.com/ aaglaas

Quit taking one or a very few verses out of the Bible in an attempt to demean, persecute, and deny happiness and the right for gays to marry one another.. while ignoring the entire rest of the Bible and all the many verses teaching to love, respect, and to not judge one another.

The very same books which are thought to condemn homosexual acts condemn hypocrisy in the most strident terms, and on greater authority: and yet Western society did not create any social taboos against hypocrisy, did not claim that hypocrites were “unnatural,” did not segregate them into an oppressed minority, did not enact laws punishing their sin with castration or death.

No Christian state, in fact has passed laws against hypocrisy per se, despite its continual and explicit condemnation by Jesus and the church. In the very same list which has been claimed to exclude from the kingdom of heaven those guilty of homosexual practices, the greedy are also excluded. And yet no medieval church or state burned the greedy at the stake, but yet did that to gay people.

No one tries to stop the greedy from getting married, nor the hypocrites.

The Church’s un-Christian animus towards gays lies exposed.

Fortunately, the majority of the modern world now looks at such animus, religious persecution, and biased judgement with disgust, for the barbarous and evil practice it is, which is why Nation after Nation, and court after court have legalized marriage equality and equality in life, for gay souls.

http://aaglaas.blogspot.com/ aaglaas

No… I merely have to listen to your words and tone of pure malignancy to see the hatred.

http://aaglaas.blogspot.com/ aaglaas

Nice splitting of hairs for someone tortured to death by church-led and inspired murders… ‘legalized’ or not..

http://aaglaas.blogspot.com/ aaglaas

Thomas Bushlack, assistant professor of moral theology at the Catholic University of St. Thomas in Minnesota: “It is becoming increasingly apparent to most Christians that homosexuality and same-sex marriage is not a central concern of the Gospel itself. The biblical references in Leviticus and Romans are ambiguous at best, and a natural law argument that can cut both ways has not created consensus on this issue.

I believe that efforts on the part of individual Christians and church leaders (and here I can speak more specifically as a Roman Catholic moral theologian in the state of Minnesota, where in November voters rejected a constitutional amendment similar to Proposition 8 and where the state legislature just legalized gay marriage, effective in August) to solidify the legal definition of marriage as between one man and one woman has neither served to promote the common good nor to facilitate the preaching of the Gospel. Even if one agrees with the theological and moral arguments against same-sex marriage (and there is clearly not consensus here), it has not appeared obvious to the majority of Christians that this necessarily entails prohibiting it in a civic and legal arena. …

If I were to offer my opinion with regard to the best way for theologians and church leaders to move forward following today’s rulings, it would be to reassess our rhetoric. For those opposed to civil recognition of same-sex marriage, the argument that allowing same-sex marriage will have a negative impact upon the common good of society has been found unconvincing, not least because there is little tangible evidence to back it up.” .

Chris

I was always taught to hate the sin and love the sinner. So you are right, no on should be persecuting and oppressing any gay people. If anyone does those things they are wrong.

Having said that, is being gay a sin? What does God say about it in the Bible? St Paul in Romans 13:14 says “Put on the Lord Jest Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires”. So what did Christ say? Mark Ch 7:20-22 “What comes out of a man is what defiles a man…evil thoughts, fornication,theft, murder, adultery,coveting, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, foolishness”. All these things defile a man.”

You see people who disagree with the gay agenda have a strong Biblical reference to feel that way. They want a society that agrees with Christ’s mind. It’s about mom and dad verses mom and mom or dad and dad. What’s better as a whole? My question is given what is said in the Bible is gay sex considered fornication,or adultery or licentiousness? I think it is consider this way. Now if you don’t agree with what Christ teaches or you don’t think He lived and said those things than that’s your issue before God when you die. (If you believe in God). But you can’t blame Cardinal Dolan and other Christians for standing up against the gay agenda when gays stand up for their agenda.

Chris

What do you mean by “better”? What’s important is not the strength of their education or their health or even how happy they are. These are of course, important. What’s more important, however, is the health of their soul. What’s important is how well do they reflect Christ and His values so they can get into heaven! For me same sex parents fall short with that goal.

http://jabbapapa.wordpress.com/ Julian Lord

The Justices have actually done a great service to the cause of
representative democracy in the US and dealt a blow to the idea that
interests groups can hold power

HA-HA-HA-HA-HAHA-HAHAHA !!!!!

So, none of this “gay marriage” stuff has been pushed by any interest groups nor political lobbies, then ?

the mind boggles at the extent of your political naïveté …

http://jabbapapa.wordpress.com/ Julian Lord

Try looking at the statistics for the numbers of deaths for the entire period of the Inquisitions — and no, I don’t mean “look at the phoney bloated figures found on atheist websites” — then compare these to the numbers of violent deaths in Hiroshima and Nagasaki ; or in Stalinist Russia ; or in the US slave plantations and the slave transport ships ; or just look at the numbers of people who have been sent to death row in the US.

The US Justice system is FAR more lethal towards accused than the Inquisitions ever were.

The numbers sentenced to death and executed during the Inquisitions, over 500 years, is about 6.000 — the numbers sentenced to death and executed in the US since 1776 is about 13.000

http://jabbapapa.wordpress.com/ Julian Lord

Right, in other words you’re just inventing it out of thin air, on the basis that you dislike my non-agreement with your views.

$20596475

So long as interest groups provide our elected representatives with accurate information they can be useful. If they attempt to influence through the payment of campaign funds etc then they are a disaster.

Fortunately we are largely free of the latter in the UK and it is our elected representatives who make the determinations. We also are free of the ridiculous concept of allowing local plebiscites on specific issues. I am not aware either of any “gay lobby” trying to buy influence in the USA or elsewhere. They seem to have had their effect exclusively through the force of argument. What on earth is wrong with that?

The mind boggles at the extent of your political prejudice.

http://jabbapapa.wordpress.com/ Julian Lord

There is a depressingly large number of such heretics in the US.

Solent Rambler

Aaglaas, you say that it is up to governments to end such evil. I wonder if you realise that there are many around the world who believe that your country’s governments have a history of “oppressing, imprisoning, torturing and murdering people” across the globe.

As the psalmist says, “Put not your trust in princes”. (I know the US is a republic, but the analogy is there.)

God bless and His peace be with you.

http://aaglaas.blogspot.com/ aaglaas

Yes… it must be depressing and hard for you to accept when people step out of the blind dogma and indoctrination you drown your mind in, let go of obsessing about gay people and their marriages such as you do daily… and step into Reason and awareness of truth and the world around them.. and that the majority of Catholics and the modern, educated world, find what you still believe regarding gay souls and marriage to be of the utmost repugnance and evil..

Lyly Bruehl

Bravo Jabba! We, children of God must stay united and Defend the faith. Man made laws always changes to accommodate their SINFUL desires. We must must resist Satan evil persuasions. Almighty God will prevail.